


hypothesize this

by Pasteles



Series: Into the College-Verse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bad Science, College Student Peter Parker, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Meet-Cute, Peter is really bad at hiding his secret identity, Secret Identity, What if we kissed, in a science lab, no betas we die like men, research lab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:01:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24015616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pasteles/pseuds/Pasteles
Summary: You are *this* close to finishing your senior thesis, but the hottie working in the lab next door keeps distracting you from your research.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Reader
Series: Into the College-Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731616
Comments: 29
Kudos: 123





	1. I’m gonna sue the architect

**Author's Note:**

> This is heavily inspired by a cursed building on my campus that I Loathe because its Vibes are disgusting. I study in the humanities so I’m never in the science building but I got taken on a tour of some labs by a colleague because our research is tangentially (very very tangentially) related and I was Shook by how confusing the building was.

Every campus has that building. You know the one. That building that no architect would dare put their name on, for fear of being shamed for their nonsensical design and labyrinth-like hallways. That building about which rumors abound, most of them ending in some student’s disappearance where they vanished into the duct system and were never seen again. That building. 

At your school, it was the Abraham Erskine Institute of Technological, Chemical, and Physical Sciences. Although, no one in their right minds called it that. To students and faculty alike, it was just “The Institute,” to be spoken with a vague sense of dread and awe.  
The central, deepest section was once the oldest building on campus, but expansions and additions and renovations over the decades have warped and distorted it to some Lovecraftian horror. The length of a football field, there are dozens and dozens of classrooms, laboratories, lecture halls, and offices serving the natural and physical science departments in the university. 

But none of that mattered. As your roommate, MJ, put it: “the vibes of that place are disgusting.” 

And so they were. They really were. Long, sterile hallways led to bland classrooms with linoleum floors and plaster walls. Most still had dingy chalkboards, a relic of the 50s, though a lucky few had more modern equipment, like whiteboards and projectors. Beyond that, the restroom facilities—if you could find them!—were horrendous, full of rusted plumbing and a suspicious lack of toilet paper. Surprisingly, the actual research labs were stellar, with wide, clean, workspaces and state-of-the-art technology that students were not only allowed, but encouraged, to take advantage of. The only problem was finding said labs. 

Learning to navigate the endless maze of The Institute was almost worthy of the degree itself. And by God—you were close enough to your degree you could almost taste it, entering the spring semester of your senior year. Besides a few last required courses, the only thing hanging over your head was your senior thesis project, which was precisely the reason you ventured into the bowels of The Institute. It wasn’t like you’d never been before, no. Nearly all of your classes had been held in the physics wing since your freshman year. You knew that part of the building like the back of your hand. But only that part. You had never had neither purpose nor desire to venture beyond that, all the way down to the biophysics laboratories, two floors below ground level. 

Your research mentor was friends with another biophysics professor who had lab space available for you to use for your project, with all the specs and equipment you needed to run your samples. It wasn’t as if you could share a communal lab space with other students, as your samples, once prepared, were so finicky and delicate that you had to control every aspect of the environment or it was sure to be a failure. Biophysics was a terribly nitpicky subject, so it’s location in the very basement of the building was ideal for everyone. 

It also was a dream come true for your project, as it would be so much more efficient for you to be able to run every step in one central location, rather than having to cart the samples around from lab to lab, machine to machine. Not to mention the privacy of a private lab! That was unheard of. You’d already received a copy of a key, and it weighed heavily in your pocket like a most prized possession. 

Your new lab was perfect in every way. The only problem was you had no idea how to find it. Room 1130 wasn’t even on the pathetic little map posted at the main entrance. So you contented yourself to trying to find it the old-fashioned way, with your boots on the ground. As you found the main staircase and began your descent to the lower laboratories, you couldn’t help but shiver. The air temperature seemed to drop a degree or two every flight of stairs lower. When you reached the bottom, you frowned, trying to decipher the posted signs. Which way go the 1100s wing? The sign pointed right and the light above it flickered. 

_MJ was so right_ , you thought to yourself, _the vibes here are so bad_. You felt the hairs on the back of your neck raise and timidly crept down the barren hallway to your right, the tap of your shoes on the linoleum floor the only sound you could hear besides an eerie, low humming. Some machine or other lab junk had to be to blame for that, so you tried not to worry.

You kept walking, taking one turn and then another as dead ends appeared. Aside from the signs on the doors and colored tiles under your feet, there was nothing to distinguish one hallway from another. They were all eerily empty and devoid of personality and flair. Smooth, grey stone lined the walls, illuminated by blue-toned light. You turned another corner, and the next hallway looked the same as the last. Scanning each doorway for the correct placard, you were perturbed as the numbers seemed to skip around. You had passed rooms 1123, 1124 and 1125 a minute ago, so why did it seemingly skip out of nowhere to 1145 and 1146? It made no sense. 

Where on earth was room 1130? 

Grumbling to yourself, you turned another corner abruptly and nearly collided with a man hurrying in the opposite direction, his head down. You stifled a shriek in your throat as your heart rate shot up momentarily. It would have been a head-on collision for sure, but his reflexes were apparently quick enough that he had dodged you completely. You took a few hesitant steps back, though it was more of a near-miss than anything. 

“Woah! I’m so sorry!” The man told you earnestly, reaching an arm out as if to steady you, though you never touched. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” You laughed. “You just scared the shit out of me!”

“I’m sorry!” He repeated, face flushing as he adjusted the safety glasses that had gotten knocked off his face as he nimbly jumped to avoid running into you. He gathered them up, stuffing them hastily into the pocket of his lab coat. 

You felt your heart rate begin to recover, more than a little foolish for having startled so much in the first place. You hadn’t even touched, after all. Still, this man was the first person you’d seen since descending to the depths and it was hardly unwelcome company. He was wearing a navy sweater under his lab coat, and his sensible, closed-toed shoes squeaked when he dragged the toe against the linoleum. You thought he looked quite cute Above all, he looked like someone who could help you out. 

“Do you know where lab 1130 is? I’m so lost.” 

“Yeah! Yeah, for sure, it’s the least I can do. I’m Peter by the way.” He said, sticking his hand out. You shook it once, firmly, before clearing your throat and adjusting the straps of your backpack, which had grown uncomfortably heavy on your shoulders. 

“Y/N. It’s nice to meet you.” You smiled. Backpack stuffed, you had thought it quite clever to bring some of your research materials, mostly binders of printed data, to move into your new lab space today. But at this point you were just regretting the extra weight. 

“Room 1130 is back this way.” He said, leading you back the way you had come. “It’s in a cluster with two other labs—1131 and 1132.”

You retraced your steps around Pushing his shoulder against an unmarked door, he led you into a small antechamber where three doors met, one on each wall. From left to right, the placards read 1130, 1131, and 1132. The lights in lab 1131 were on. 

“It’s not even labeled from the outside!” You protested, frustrated at having walked right past where you needed to be. “How is anyone supposed to know it’s there?”

“Almost no one comes down here.” Peter confessed, absently tracing his hand along the doorframe. “So things are on a need-to-know basis.” 

“Well, I need to know.” You huffed. “I’m renting this lab space for the next few months.”

You explained the gist of your project to him as you unlocked the door to the lab. Essentially, you were studying the effects of centrifugal forces and various chemical agents on compounds extracted from fungi. Figuring out how the molecules behaved—and changed—while in superoptimal conditions was your goal. Potential applications for your findings could be anything from medicine to transportation. Peter’s eyes lit up. 

“No way!” He burst, smile spreading across his face. “That’s so cool! You know, I’m working on a project that’s kinda similar, but I’m analyzing properties of spider silk instead.“

“Ah,” you nodded thoughtfully, “great choice. The tensile strength on that stuff can be insane. I’m just hoping I can find some miraculous property like that in my samples.” 

His sheer enthusiasm was infectious and you couldn’t help but return his smile as you dumped your backpack on the floor. 

“Hopefully this is where the magic will happen.” You said brightly, flicking the lights on to reveal a small workspace, packed with various instruments and apparatuses. You unzipped your bag and pulled out the binders of data, setting them on one of the counters while your eyes scanned the space. Yes, this would do nicely. 

“If you need anything, I work in 1131, it’s just next door.” Peter gestured over his shoulder. 

You couldn’t believe your luck. 

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, “I don’t want to take up too much of your time.” 

Part of you really didn’t want him to go. To be totally honest, you were in such a niche field of research, you were surprised to have anyone to talk to it about besides, like, your mentor. It excited you beyond belief. As you’d heard it said, if you want a researcher to fall in love with you, just ask them about their current project and let them talk, ask relevant questions, and praise their work. You briefly considered putting the theory further to the test before you threw Peter a tight-lipped smile and thanked him profusely for his help finding the place, saying you had to work on settling in and orienting the equipment. You had a thesis to finish, after all.


	2. I’m adding 2+2 but I keep getting 5

Things were going great. A few weeks into the semester and you were totally settled into your lab, collecting you good data and running microexperiment after microexperiment. The set-up for each consecutive experiment was insanely meticulous and time-consuming, but the payoff was more than lucrative enough to make up for it. Unfortunately, it meant that you were burning the midnight oil more often than not. 

With classes and other commitments filling you days, the only time you could block of consecutive hours and hours of time was after dinner on weekdays and early in the morning on weekend. Curiously, Peter seemed to be working on a similar schedule. You saw him most days now, his presence signaled by the door to his lab being left ajar and the siren-like call of his ABBA playlist emanating from within. 

An easy cohabitation emerged between you, one borne out of necessity. Peter was right—no one ever came down to the biophysics section of the building, so you were often alone for hours on end. Alone together, in two adjacent little labs. This meant that you often had to rely on each other in sticky situations. Like the time you’d misplaced your only pen, so he lent you his. Or the time he had accidentally forgot his key, so you used a Bobby pin to pick the lock so he wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to get it. The smile on his face as you jiggled the handle and swung the door to open could’ve melted butter. 

Even though you weren’t actually lab partners, working in different labs on different projects, you considered him a partner in the process. More than that, you considered him a friend. And if maybe, just maybe, you thought he was irresistibly handsome in his lab coat, then that was just another part of it. If you were being honest with yourself, the tiny seed of a crush had been planted the very day you met him, and it was ready to sprout into a wild, verdant tree. Or an out-of-control weed. Whichever. 

“Knock knock.” Peter’s voice cut through the music you had playing—he had let you pick the playlist for that evening—and he tapped gently on the doorframe. The door was open, so you merely turned in your chair, brushing your hair out of your face and blinking the glare from the screen out of your eyes. 

“Did you seriously just say ‘knock knock?’” You asked, mind too frazzled to come up with anything more clever. The spreadsheet open on your computer was playing tricks on you. The data points kept jumping around and you couldn’t keep them straight to say your life. A headache was blooming behind your eyes and you closed them briefly, rubbing your temples with your fingertips to try and soothe the ache. 

“Yeah, I did, so what? Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” You replied, eyes still closed. 

“Just me.” 

“Just me who?”

“Just me, it’s 2:34 in the morning and you need to go to bed.” 

You snapped your eyes open and glanced at your phone in disbelief. Had you really worked so long? Part of it was easy to believe; you were so exhausted you could’ve fallen asleep where you sat at the lab table you’d set up as a desk. 

“That’s not a funny joke.” You sighed, frowning as if it would magically make the numbers on the clock change. 

“It’d be funnier if you got some sleep.” He told you, helpfully picking your backpack up off the floor where you’d tossed it aside hours earlier. “C’mon, pack up. I’ll walk you home.”

“Are you sure? It’s super late and I live near the south side of campus, way far from here.” You began to gather up your notes and papers. A lot of it could be left in the lab, but you needed to take your laptop back to your apartment to charge. 

“It’s no problem. I live over that way too, so it’s on my way home.” He said brightly, holding your backpack open as you dumped your things into it. 

“Thank you.” 

Once you’d both gotten your labs tidied up and locked tight for the night, you began the walk home. It was a perfectly pleasant night, quiet and clear. There was a chill in the air, but Peter lent you his jacket, which smelled like him, warm and spicy. You wrapped it around yourself and inhaled deeply. The conversation flowed easily and you discussed everything that had gone on in your respective labs that day, as well as the ridiculous classwork you were still expected to keep up with. Before you knew it, you were turning the corner to your street. 

“Let me give you your jacket back, you must be freezing.” You told him, shifting your backpack to start to take it off. His hand came down on your shoulder, stopping you. 

“No, no, it’s okay. You can give it back later. It looks much better on you anyway.”

You laughed. It was far too big on you, that was for sure, but you obliged him anyway.   
At the door of your apartment building, the streetlight illuminated the porch area and you and Peter were bathed in the warm light. You slipped the key in the lock and turned it, an idea forming in the back of your mind. 

“Do you wanna come in? My roommate is a theatre major and it’s tech week for a show she’s producing, so she’s literally sleeping there...” 

Your word were laden with possibility, but Peter’s phone chirped. He snuck a quick glance and shifted on his feet. You could tell from the way his shoulders hunched that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. 

“No, I’m sorry, I can’t. I’d really love to, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t. I have to go and—“ he babbled before cutting himself off, tucking his phone in the pocket of his jeans. 

“No worries. Thanks for walking me home. Goodnight, Peter.”

Carefully draping his chair over your desk chair, you changed into pajamas. You tumbled into bed after completing an abridged skincare routine, hoping to get at least a few hours of sleep. However, Peter Parker still lingered in your mind. He was unabashedly handsome, that much you knew. And so chivalrous for walking you home in the dark. You felt your face heat up, imagining the possibilities if he had taken you up on your offer. 

No, no. It was best that he didn’t. You didn’t need that distraction, especially not so close to your research. You sighed and rolled over in bed, flipping your pillow to the cool side. A little while later, you fell asleep. 

The next morning, over your coffee and sensible oat muffin, you scrolled though Twitter to catch up on the news. #ThankYouSpiderman was trending locally. Apparently, overnight the masked hero had single-handedly halted a scheme to rob a bookstore at 3 in the morning. 

Firstly, you wondered who would be daft enough to rob a bookstore. Of course, then you remembered just how much you’d shelled out for textbooks during the course of your studies and considered the would-be thieves on to something. Secondly, you wondered if that Spiderman guy ever got any sleep. Being a superhero sounded like an awful lot of work at inconvenient hours.

You scrolled down a little more before putting your phone away, eyes lingering a little too long on a gif of him in action, swinging through the air like Tarzan on his spiderweb. Something about it captivated you, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. 

—

The next day you decided to drop by your lab between classes to check on how one of your test runs was progressing. You turned the corner leading down to your lab suite and the sound of shouting urged your feet into a run. 

“Hey! Is anyone there? Help!”

You recognized the voice. It was Peter’s. Slinging your backpack to the floor, you slammed your shoulder into the door of his lab to push it open. You screamed. 

“Oh my god what IS that stuff?”

It was like a bomb had gone off. Peter was on the floor of his lab, laying on his back, and his arms were flung out to the side. His chest and upper body was covered in a writhing, translucent mass of whiteish goo, like something out of a sci-fi horror movie. It pinned him to the floor and he struggled against it, his arms flexing as he tried in vain to free himself. 

“Y/N! Thank God!” He turned his head and relaxed when he saw you. “It was an experiment, but I added some of the wrong stuff to it and now it’s, ah, cutting off my circulation.” He struggled to catch his breathe as the sinewy, white threads constricted his rib cage.

“Okay okay,” panic bubbled in your chest, “what do I do?” 

“You see the bucket of water by the door? It’s not water, it’s a solvent that’ll get rid the webs... I need you to pour it on me.” His fingers scrabbled for grip on the smooth floor tiles. 

“If you say so...” 

And so you dumped the bucket of solvent on him, like an athlete dousing his coach in Gatorade after winning the championship. Except the solvent smelled much fouler than the sports drink. Sure enough, as soon as the liquid hit the material it disintegrated into small, harmless bits. It looked like someone had dumped a bowl of rice on him. Peter sat up, free from the confines, and he shook out his hair like a wet dog.

“Emergency shower.” He coughed, stumbling to his feet and towards the corner of the lab where that familiar orange shower head intruded into the room. It was safety policy that every room in the building had one, for precisely this purpose. Chemical burns were no joke. You beat him to it, yanking on the chain. The water gushed from the tap as he raced under it, stripping his shirt from his back as he did so. 

You immediately turned your back to give him a little privacy, but not before catching a glimpse of the muscles of his chest and arms. Jesus Christ. That was not what you would have expected to see under his lab coat. You flushed and firmly kept your gaze on the wall, determined to keep your cool. 

Peter let the shower run for the prescribed five minutes before shutting it off and letting the water drain out. He sighed deeply, stepping out from the divot in the floor that was designed to catch the runoff from the shower. His shoes squelched on the floor and he immediately took them off, left only his jeans that sat low on his hips. You could see the waistband of his boxers peeking out from underneath them. They were red. 

“Are you okay?” You asked. “Do I need to go get someone?”

“No, no,” he said, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to squeeze some of the water out. “That was more of a precaution than anything. I should be just fine. This happens all the time...”

As if to illustrate that point, he reached into one of the cupboards and pulled out a towel, tossing it over his head and beginning to dry off his hair. You could see behind him that cupboard also held numerous changes of clothes. It was a really smart idea, actually, and you considered stocking your lab in the same way. It certainly would be convenient. 

Your attention was then drawn to the remaining mess on the floor, a mixture of intact web reside and the weird rice grains the solvent had created. You nudged one of the piles with the toe of your boot, recalling the footage of Spiderman flying through the air on his webs that you’d seen that morning. You laughed when the webs stuck to your shoe. 

“You’re just like Spiderman! I wonder if he ever has to deal with anything like this.” You joked, swinging your foot up onto the table to get better leverage to scrape the webbing off. You looked up and noted the shocked look on Peter’s face—like someone-just-kicked-a-puppy shocked—and raised an eyebrow. Did you say something wrong? You let your foot drop back to the floor. 

“What? It’s a compliment. He’s a hero, y’know...” 

“Uh, yeah, thanks.” Peter’s voice cracked as he said it, his hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. You averted your eyes again, painfully aware that he was still shirtless, the towel he had been using to dry off abandoned. Silence filled the space between you before he spoke again. 

“I don’t think Spiderman would get caught dead doing anything like this.” 

“Really?” You laughed softly. “He’s human, too—I think. These things happen.”

“Yeah.” Peter said, his gaze dropping to his feet. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” You didn’t mean to pry or anything, but you really wanted to help. You’d only known him for a few weeks, that much was true, but you felt like you could tell him anything. You hoped he felt the same way about you, had the same level of trust. 

“I’ll be fine.” He said. “It sucks that the experiment was such a failure, though.” 

“What were you even trying to do?” You asked, knowing that talking about research was always a safe topic, even under the most awkward of circumstances. His face brightened and he crossed the lab with a spring in his step, his bare feet slipping a little on the tile as he carefully avoided the sticky debris scattered across the floor. He produced a notebook, shoving it in your hands. 

In Peter’s looping, scrawled handwriting, you could barely make out dozens and dozens of chemical formulas, marching across the page like he’d dumped the contents of his brain onto it. He pointed to a row of carefully written equations. 

“The idea was the add this compound to the base fluid in order to change its properties. The tensile strength is both its greatest asset and its biggest drawback. I was trying to make a self-destructible on command, but, uh, it didn’t work. I’m not sure why yet, I’ll have to run some other tests—“

“Peter, wait.”

You furrowed your brow, scanning his notes. Logically, they all made sense, but you just couldn’t figure out one thing. 

“The math checks out, but I don’t really know what this has to do with your project? I mean, I thought you were just studying webs, not making them...” 

“You’re right!” Peter squeaked, pulling his notebook away and struggling to come up with a good lie. “I am studying them! This experiment was just, a—uh—a passion project!” 

He cringed then moment he said it. 

“Right.” You didn’t sound convinced. And you weren’t. The university took misappropriation if its funding very seriously, and if Peter was using grant money on projects not related to the one submitted to the research board, he could get in very serious trouble. You definitely didn’t want to risk your academic career by getting caught in a lie. 

As if reading your mind, Peter crossed in front of you, crowding your personal space. 

“It’s not what it looks like, I swear.” He said, desperately trying to convince you otherwise. 

You could feel his body heat radiating off of him and you inadvertently leaned towards him, your eyes searching his face. The intensity of his gaze made you feel like you were going to burst into flames at any moment. It was almost too much. 

“Peter, I—“ 

You tried to turn away, but he caught your arm, his hand curled around your bicep, pulling you back to him. You took a deep, steadying breath, tilting your chin so you could meet his gaze with the same confidence. 

“Please.” He said, not knowing exactly what for. 

You knew you were crossing a line you couldn’t come back from, but you rose up on your tiptoes to kiss him anyway. His arms fell loosely around your waist and he leaned into you, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. You felt a chill down the back of your neck as his wet hair dripped on your shoulders. 

You hoped he couldn’t feel how your heart was beating its way out of your chest as he pulled you closer. Your palms smoothed over the skin of his back, tracing from the column of his spine up to his shoulder blades, clinging onto him like he was a lifeline. He nipped at your lower lip before dropping his head to your neck, sucking at the pulse point there and tracing a line of kisses to your ear. 

Your fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him back to face you so you could capture his lips again, biting and sucking with an almost punishing force. How could he do this to you? Expect you to keep such a secret? 

Peter responded in kind, accepting and returning your passion with equally feverish kisses of his own. His hands stuttered at your waist, caught between wanting to grab, to take, and the perilous fear of going too far. He settled for resting them at your hips, his fingers tangling in the belt loops of your jeans. 

A sudden noise caused you to break apart in an instant. 

The alarm you had set on your phone blared, alerting you to the fact that you were going to be late if you didn’t get your ass in gear soon. Unfortunately, you hadn’t gotten anything done in your lab, but what did it matter? Breathing heavily, you squeezed your eyes shut, as if ignoring it would make it go away. But when you opened them, Peter was there staring down at you, his cheeks flushed and his hair still damp, his lips pinker than usual from your midday tryst. 

The last thing you wanted to do was leave, what with so many words unsaid left between the two of you.

“I-I gotta go, I have class.” You said, adjusting your shirt and grabbing your backpack. You rushed out the door almost at a run, cheeks aflame and mind buzzing with questions. 

After you left the room, Peter quickly closed the door and changed out of his wet clothes. He might’ve fumbled with the button of his jeans more than usual, but who was to say? He, too, was lost in thought. 

Firstly, he wasn’t sure how to tell you he wasn’t working under a university-funded grant. Tony Stark himself was providing the funds for his research and furnishing the lab space in the basement of The Institute. It just wasn’t practical for Peter to commute from campus to Stark Tower every day just to work for a few hours in those labs, so he made do with Lab 1131. It was supposed to be totally private, a top-secret extension of the Avenger’s finest scientific research branch, known only to those with the highest security clearance. Until you came along. 

Secondly, he had no idea how to tell you how he felt about you. He’d had crushes before—most of them didn’t end well. Peter knew his chosen career path wasn’t the most conducive to open and honest relationships and, well, if he couldn’t even be honest with you about his research, how could he expect to give you the kind of relationship you deserved to have? The thought, poisonous and bitter, soured his mood utterly and completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God I am SO SORRY for this internal conflict dropping at the end I know I said I wouldn’t explore ethical quandaries again but... I wanna do it anyway I Deserve it... I have three papers due in the next week I haven’t written yet 
> 
> Anyway let me tell you because we’re such great friends I just dumped my partner of almost two years (unrelated, it’s because they were being an ass) and now I’m trying so hard not to fall for this guy in one of my zoom lectures because we were put in a breakout room (just! the! two! of! us!) and we did NOTHING but banter... god it was meant to be... we didn’t even do the exercise the prof was asking for we straight-up just flirted for ten minutes and came back to the group with Nothing


	3. I’m so close I can taste it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I know it’s not a monday, but I figured I’d drop the next chapter before She-ra season five comes out on Netflix because that is ALL I’m going to be thinking about for the next week

You agonized over whether or not to act like nothing had happened, like you’d never kissed him. 

You were certain you could plausibly claim deniability about Peter’s passion project, provided he kept his mouth shut too. With any luck, a good old fashioned academic tar and feathering over grant fund misuse was not in your future. The only logical solution there, you kept trying to tell yourself, was to cool your relationship with Peter back down to a friendly simmer and grind like hell to finish your lab work as soon as humanely possible.The sooner you could get away from Peter, the better, because you absolutely could not stop thinking about him. About his body. About the way his lips felt molded against yours. 

Reliving those memories was slowly driving you crazy. You couldn’t think about the way his hands felt caressing your skin without feeling thousands of butterflies in your stomach, eating you alive from the inside out. You were shocked, more than anything, about the intense visceral response your body had to his. After just a taste you were addicted and dying for more. Oh, it was torture. Absolutely divine torture. There was no way you could just lock those feelings away and pretend you didn’t have them. You were a human, not a robot! 

Unfortunately, you had more important things than Peter’s rippling muscles to think about, like your research, for one. You had arrived at the lab early the next morning, knowing Peter was a late sleeper and you would be unlikely to cross paths. You needed time and space to think, and work on your research, among other things. 

Your very important research, not to mention all your additional class work, though it took a backseat to finishing your project. You’d saved some of the least rigorous courses for your last semester, public speaking among them, so work outside of class was the least of your worries. You had so carefully orchestrated everything to give you the best shot at success. It was still early, though, and things could still go wrong. You tapped your pen on the corner of your planner, scanning over your to-do list without really processing anything. 

You tried not to think about how Peter’s bare skin had felt under your fingers, wondering how it might feel were the situation reversed, if you were the one unclothed and exposed. You blushed. 

Freshman year, you had gotten infected with the most intense crush for a boy on your floor. He took you on a few dates before hitting you with the “it’s not you, it’s me” spiel. You were absolutely devastated and moped in your dorm room for, like, a week. The GPA hit had been a doozy, but you’d recovered. You swore to yourself you would never again let a man affect you. It had been three years since then! You were not about to stop that streak now for another boy, not when you were so close to graduating! You had to ignore him, ignore the way he made you feel. It was the only way. 

Damn. It was so easy to make that choice when you couldn’t see his deep brown eyes, so warm and inviting, melting your resolve and your will to resist. It was so easy to hold him at arm’s length in your thoughts when you weren’t gravitated to his presence like dust particles to a protostar after being impacted by the shockwave of the spiral arm of a galaxy. 

Astronomy. You took it, and aced it, sophomore year. 

The point is, you knew you were just lying to yourself when you thought you could ignore him. You sighed, rocking back in your chair.   
There was no way you could pull it off. So you didn’t. 

You knew Peter would come in sometime just after lunch. He was taking a reduced course load for his last semester and only met for classes three days a week. The lucky bastard. Today was one of his days off, which meant that he would spend most of it in the lab when he got around to it. Or, at least, that’s what you thought. You definitely hadn’t memorized his schedule or anything. 

Which left you a good three hours at least to make good progress on the experiment before he showed up and shattered your focus. Pressing shuffle on your music playlist, you settled down to work with the quiet fury of a determined student, fingers flying across the keyboard as you processed data. 

—

Exactly three and a half hours later (no, you hadn’t been counting), you heard the click of the suite door handle being turned and the creak of the hinges. Peter had arrived. It was good timing too. You thought you were on to something and you needed a second opinion. 

“Hey, Parker!” You shouted over your shoulder when he came in. Saying his first name felt too personal, too intimate. 

“Y-yeah? What’s up?” Came his reply. He was hesitant, unsure of your intentions. Since the kiss in his lab he, too, had been totally occupied by thinking about you in all his waking thoughts. It was kinda ridiculous. He felt like a teenager again, all giddy and nervous to be around his crush. It was exhilarating, if not exhausting. 

“Can you come take a look at this?” You were bent over a lab bench, squinting into your microscope and scrawling notes about what you saw. The slide under the scope was a sample pulled from fungal cells you had applied a combination of chemical and physical catalysts. 

“What do these look like to you?” 

Peter pressed his eye to the lens and looked silently for a moment. 

“Uh...” he wasn’t really sure what you wanted him to say, so he went with honesty as a best policy. “It looks like a bunch of little stars.” 

“Exactly! The combination of the centrifugal forces with the serum fundamentally changed the shape of the cell walls into a polyhedra—“ you babbled on, getting increasingly jargon-y as you went on. You could tell you had lost him somewhere along the way, for although his smile hadn’t faded, there was a blank look in his eyes, especially when you mentioned the “Basidiomycota implications.”

You couldn’t blame him. Biophysical mushroom research really wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Pulling the slide from the scope, you curled your fingers around it protectively before carefully slotting it back into the holding case. 

“It means that my hypothesis is correct!” You explained, your voice going shrill from the excitement. Earlier that day you couldn’t believe your eyes, preparing another sample for the slide and expecting to be disappointed yet again. However, the instant you saw the field of star-shaped cells, your adrenaline spiked and you couldn’t sit still. You jumped up from your seat, your legs stiff and sore when they hit the ground

Of course, no scientist was going to rush to declare a discovery without at least some peer review, so you sat on the edge of your seat, checking and re-checking your observations and waiting for Peter to show up. In spite of everything, you still trusted him more than anyone else to be the first to review. 

“I-I’m so proud of you!” He said, wrapping his arms around you in a hug before he could stop himself. You immediately stiffened in his arms, but before he could pull away you wrapped your arms around his waist and pulled him close, feeling the tension flow out of your body. Yeah, there was no way you could just ignore the way you felt about him. Peter leaned down to rest his head on your shoulder, his face titled towards yours. You stood there a moment, sharing the same air, close enough to smell the warm, spicy scent of his cologne. He pressed a shy kiss to the side of your throat, taking a moment to smile against your skin. 

“I think this calls for a celebration.“ He said. 

“What do you have in mind?”

“Coffee? My treat.”

There certainly was something to be said about the relationship between a researcher and their chosen chemical stimulant. For once, you had a love affair with your coffee and you simply couldn’t get enough. 

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” You grinned, switching the microscope off and returning the lenses to their proper orientation. You moved to grab your jacket but Peter stopped you, a gentle hand on your forearm. 

“There’s no need. There’s a coffee shop here in the building.” 

That revelation was almost more exciting than the results your research. 

“You mean I’ve been walking two blocks to Starbucks when there’s been a coffee shop in the building this whole time?!” 

“Huh, all this time I thought you were just a really big Starbucks snob.” Peter teased. “But yeah, it’s the school’s best-kept secret. The chemistry department defends it ferociously. We might get kicked out if you say anything about it.” 

“My lips are sealed.” You said gleefully. 

You locked your lab before you left out of an overabundance of caution. Neither of you wanted anyone sneaking in while you were away and messing with something sensitive. Peter especially. He doubled checked the lock to his lab, giving it a quick jiggle even though he hadn’t yet made it inside that day. He had left his super suit in one of the cupboards for easy access the day previous and he knew that thing was worth more than all of the equipment on the whole floor. 

Instead of taking a right when you left the lab suite, Peter lead you to opposite direction, up a stairwell and through the maze of hallways, confident with every turn that he was going the right way. From the ground floor, you took the elevator the rest of the way up to one of the upper floors of the chemistry department. When you got there, you were immediately bitterly envious of the researchers whose labs were up there. The windows spanned every wall, drinking in the sun and bathing the halls in warm, comforting light. 

“Why don’t we get any windows?” You complained, pressing a forlorn hand to the glass. 

“Because our labs are underground.” Peter said, grinning. “C’mon, the coffee shop is just this way.” 

He pushed past a doorway labeled “Local Traffic Only,” holding it open for you as you followed behind him. After a short walk, the hallway widened into a large gathering space, with panoramic photos of campus along one walk and a cork board plastered with advertisements internships and student groups. On the far end was the coffeeshop and beyond it, more glorious windows. 

Calling the setup a ‘coffeeshop’ might have been a little of an overstatement, but there was a counter with a little glass case of pastries and donuts and a cheery-faced barista with a blue apron standing behind it. The menu was neither extensive nor complex, but it certainly was enough to satisfy. 

You ordered a latte and stepped over to the seating area, where floor-to-ceiling windows gave sitters a view of north quad and it’s gardens and pathways. 

“I’ll grab us a seat.” You told Peter. 

There were a few tables with students scattered here and there, textbooks open and laptops engaged. There was a table for two by the window and you sunk into the chair. 

“Can I have a hot chocolate please?” You heard Peter order. 

“Whipped cream?” The barista asked. 

“Oh, yeah yeah yeah. Thanks.” He said. 

After a moment, both of your drinks were ready and Peter carefully carried them both to your table. You took the top off to let the steaming cup cool down so you wouldn’t burn your tongue. He did the same, except he first stuck his finger in the whipped cream and impatiently licked it off. 

You were dying to ask, but you didn’t dare speak it out loud. _Is this a date?_ You scrunched your nose over your coffee cup, taking a quick sip to avoid looking at Peter for a moment, scalding your tongue in the process. You turned your head away and looked out the window onto the grassy quads below. Students milled to and fro, mostly sticking to the paths jutting out at odd angles from the buildings. Every so often, though, someone would cut through the grass and take the shortest path across. 

“What’re you thinking about?” Peter asked, his hands wrapped around his cup. 

“Nothing!” You blurted, jolting in your seat. “I mean—“

“There must be a lot on your mind.” He said thoughtfully, tilting his head as he looked you over. You flushed, suddenly feeling very naked under his gaze. 

“Y-yeah.” You said. He had no idea, did he?

“Me too.” His gaze dropped to his cup again and silence filled the space between you. You took another sip of your coffee to occupy yourself while you thought of something to say. As it turns out, you didn’t have to. 

“I really like you, Y/N...” He confessed. 

There was a “but” coming, you could feel it. Your heart rate shot up while you chided yourself for getting so worked up. Yesterday the two of you had played tonsil hockey. Of course he liked you. You knew that much. But it didn’t necessarily mean he wanted anything more. And that was fine. It was fine. It was totally within his right. 

“I like you too.” You said, as if defending yourself, and it sounded like the lamest thing in the world that could’ve come from your mouth.

“But, there’s something I gotta tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our science building supposedly has a coffee shop and a greenhouse... it took me till winter trimester my sophomore year to find the coffee shop but I still can’t find the greenhouse. My science friends all swear it exists and one time during finals they said they took shots in there but they wouldn’t take me with them. Can you believe that shit?! My humanities friend and I took shots in the library instead but it wasn’t the same :(


	4. I’m caring less and less about responsibility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclaimer, I had so much fun writing this chapter. I might’ve left in some utterly questionable metaphors and turns of phrase that made me laugh really damn hard. Is it cheesy at some points? Yes. Was it a joy to write? Also yes Enjoy!

Peter had something very important to tell you. So important, in fact, that he had immediately retracted his statement to give himself a little bit more time to gather his courage, his nerve fizzling out. 

“There’s something I gotta to tell you, but I can’t do it here.” He amended. 

“O-okay.” You replied, mostly out of social correctness. What were you gonna do, through a fit in a public place? Highly unlikely. 

And so, after finishing your drinks in peace, you made the trek back down to the lab suite in silence, tension blanketing the air between you. The nervous energy you could sense emanating off Peter caused your mind to race. 

What on earth could be so important? You grappled to come up with an answer. This definitely went beyond your standard relationship-defining conversations. The coffee you had just drank churned in your stomach, which was flipping and tying itself into knots. Did he get caught committing grant fraud with his little passion project? Did the university catch him? Were you going to get in trouble too, for being an accomplice? 

You were nearly out of breath by the time you arrived, though not from the exercise. Peter unlocked his lab and flipped the lights on, gesturing for you to go inside. He closed the door behind him and locked it too, for good measure. 

“Y/N, I—“ he started, and then stopped, running his fingers through his curls. They sprang wildly around his temples, making him look like a very romantic notion of a mad scientist, tortured by the pursuit of knowledge. Or something like that. 

He was too handsome for his own good, you decided. But that was irrelevant to the conversation at hand. Peter took a deep breath, pacing to and fro in his lab.

“So, um, first things first... I’m not misappropriating lab funds at all. I would never do that, you gotta believe me.”

“I believe you, Peter.” You tried to reassure him, to calm that desperate look in his eye, though it didn’t go away. As he paced around his lab, he straightened and tidied the equipment on the counters he passed. He stopped in front of one of the cupboards, his back to you. 

“My funding doesn’t come from the university directly.” He explained, looping his fingers around the handle to the cupboard and pulling it open. His broad shoulders blocked its contents from view, but he pulled out what looked like a bundle of cloth and turned back to face you. 

You could do nothing but stare at him, utterly puzzled. That wasn’t to say you weren’t relieved to hear that he wasn’t committing an awful academic faux pas and a nasty fraud case at that. It was just that his anxiety didn’t seem to match tonally with the situation at hand. If his funding came from elsewhere and they had signed off on his day-to-day experiments in the lab, then it was no big deal and that was that. 

If that was the case, then why did he seem so nervous? The uneasy silence stretched between you as Peter’s gaze dropped to the thing in his hands. Yours did too, curiosity overcoming you. It was fabric or clothing of some kind, in a red and blue pattern that seemed eerily familiar, but you just couldn’t put your finger on it. 

“My funding,” he said, “it comes from Tony Stark.”

He presented the fabric to you, unfolding it and letting its limbs fall limp. As it unfolded you realized it was a superhero suit. A spider emblem was there across the chest, bold and unmistakeable and you grabbed one of the sleeves, needed to take a closer look. You gingerly fingered the material of the suit, the material utterly unlike any other you had felt. It was soft and malleable, yet also resilient. Gears were turning in your head and you tried to connect the dots. Spiderwebs. Spider silk. Peter. Tony Stark. 

“So do you, like, work for Spiderman?” You pinched the fabric between your fingers, frowning. 

Being on a superhero’s payroll would be pretty cool, you had to admit. 

In your head, Spiderman was a quasi-mythological figure. You knew he was a real person, obviously, but beyond that he was a total mystery. He was kind of like the Queen of England in that way. A comforting, ubiquitous presence, but one you ultimately knew very little about. All the information comes secondhand, snippets of news and rumors about the daily goings-on, but nothing about the person themself. The flesh-and-blood human always remained an enigma. 

But here you were. You could see a small tear in the fabric on the the wrist of the right sleeve, hastily patched up with skinny spider silk stitches. Spiderman felt more real to you then than he did any night on the news. Maybe Peter could introduce you. That would be really cool. 

Peter laughed. You dropped the sleeve, letting it fall, and tilted your head up to meet his eye, puzzled. 

“What’s so funny?” 

There was a sort of unrestrained glee on his face. 

“Well, uh, I don’t work for Spiderman... I am Spiderman.” 

“What?!”

For being a researcher, one who literally makes discoveries and puts evidence and data together on a daily basis, you felt quite dumb at not figuring this out sooner. It explained quite a lot of things about him and made perfect sense, now that you were giving it a second thought. Honestly, his experiments with spider silk should’ve been a dead giveaway. So many things should’ve been a dead giveaway. 

“I’m Spiderman.” He repeated, with no less conviction. 

“Prove it.” 

Obvious or no, you were still a scientist and you still needed to see some hard evidence.

“Okay.”

Peter thought for a moment about what he could do that would impress you the most. He toed out of his shoes and socks, kicking them to the side. Putting a slight bend to his knees and dropping his center of gravity, he threw a quick glance at you just to make sure you were watching. 

He had no reason to worry. Your eyes were glued to him. 

“Watch this.” He said anyway before contracting his legs and springing off of the floor in a graceful backflip, his muscles coiling and uncoiling like a compressed spring. In the blink of an eye, he had reached the peak of his jump. Stopping his momentum, he used his powers to make his feet stick to the ceiling. He turned to face you, almost perfectly at your eye-level even though he was upside-down. 

“I’m Spiderman.” He said with a bravado you rarely heard from him. 

“Impressive.” You admitted, a million curious questions flitting through your mind. “You can just do it on command?”

“Yep.” He said, and then, as if to illustrate the point, he kick out one leg and, in a fluid motion, disconnected from the ceiling. Almost weightless, he completed the rotation of the backflip and landed facing you, dropping into a deep squat to absorb the impact. 

“Pretty cool, right?” He straightened up as you nodded. 

“That’s incredible, Peter.” 

The boy took a deep breath, the tension melting from his shoulders. He had tried to prepare himself for the any number of ways you could’ve responded to him sharing his alter ego. Not all of them good. It was so unbelievably relieving for him to get your positive response. He took a step closer to you, urging himself to continue speaking before he lost his nerve. 

“So, like I was saying, I really like you, Y/N, I just... I really needed to be honest with you. This is who I am. He’s as much a part of me as any other.”

“I understand.” You said, though you knew you in fact understood very little and had much to learn. However, you knew all you needed to for the time being. And, after all, your patience had gotten worn thin. 

“I have a responsibility to this city and—“

“Shut up and kiss me already.” You told him, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him to you with a fervor. He responded in kind, his arms skirting up your thighs and taking a firm grip on your ass to pick you up and set you down on the table in front of him. It was at just the right height so that you were only a little bit taller than him while seated there. Peter’s hands were on your knees, pushing them apart so he could settle between your legs, tilting his head to kiss you, just as you had asked. 

“I think it’s great that you’re Spiderman.” You told him between kisses. “Everyone loves a man in tights.”

“They are not tights!” He retorted, his hand snaking up your back and tangling in your hair, pulling your head back sharply so he could kiss your neck. Your squeal turned into a moan as his lips brushed over the delicate skin to the side of your throat. 

“Whatever you say.” You said breathlessly, your heartbeat roaring in your ears. Your hands dropped to the front of his jeans, roughly palming the bulge you felt there before reaching for his belt buckle. 

Your fists clenched. 

“Wait!” You said. 

Peter immediately pulled away, stepping back from the table. You caught his hand and pulled him gently back, pressing a chaste kiss on his lips.

“Not here. We cannot do this here. I totally draw the line at fucking in a lab. That’s... not sexy at all. Don’t mix personal stuff and work, right?”

“You’re right.” He agreed reluctantly, drawing his lips away from yours only a hairsbreadth.

“My place. Let’s go. Come on.” You breathed, wanting and needing him more than you had wanted anything. 

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” He grinned, snapping up his backpack and haphazardly shoving the super suit inside, just in case disaster were to strike later on. You, too, snatched up your things and locked your lab. Work could wait. You had more important business to take care of. A super hot superhero for one. 

During the hurried walk back to your apartment, it felt like every nerve in your body was on fire, the anticipation building inside you like the world’s horniest pressure cooker. You held hands, his thumb brushing over your knuckles every so often. You passed quite a few familiar faces on the sidewalk, the small talk felt forced and unnatural every time. 

“Do you think they can tell?” You muttered to him after a particularly awkward interaction with someone you vaguely knew from a lecture.

“Tell what?”

“That we’re uh... we’re about to...”

“Ah, yeah, almost definitely.” He teased, tracing a finger along your cheekbone before tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “You’re blushing like crazy.” 

“I am not!” You said indignantly. 

Peter smirked, and you couldn’t help but admire just how well that expression suited him. Thankfully, you didn’t run into anyone else you knew before bounding up to the door of your apartment and letting yourself in. The moment the door closed behind you, your desperation peaked. Your fingers tore at his clothes, and his at yours, absolutely determined to get them out of the way. 

Your apartment altogether wasn’t much to behold, with it’s postage-stamp-sized kitchen and minuscule seating area. From the door to your bedroom was only about five steps. Still, you thanked your lucky stars your roommate was MIA more often than not thanks to her major. Having to explain to her why there were various articles of clothing all over the apartment was not on your to-do list. 

You pulled him into your bedroom, your shirt and bra on the floor in the hallway. Peter’s shirt had gotten thrown and had draped itself over the back of the couch. His belt came next, falling to the floor of your with a clank of the buckle. You closed the door behind you for good measure and turned on your heel, shimmying out of your pants and panties and tossing them aside. Peter did the same with his jeans and boxers. 

You drank in the planes and angles of his lithe, muscular body before your impatience became too much to bear. You grasped his shoulders, pushing him backwards onto your bed and straddling his muscular thighs. His hands flew to your waist, helping you keep your balance as you navigated your way onto him, bending over to kiss his face, his neck, his chest. You felt him, hot and insistent, at the crook of your thigh. 

“You’re so fucking hot.” You told him, grinding your hips down and biting into his shoulder. 

“You are too.” He said, his hands cupping your breasts and fixing them a squeeze. 

“Yeah, but you’re _super_ hot.”

His hand slapped your ass as punishment before kneading it roughly, smoothing the deliciously sting away. 

“That was an awful pun and you know it.”

You laughed in response, bending forward to kiss him as you sank down on his cock, moaning at the tight fit and giving yourself a moment to breathe. 

“Fuck,” he groaned, furrowing his brow. You slowly began to rock your hips back and forth, your hands squeezing on his biceps for... balance. Yeah, for balance. No other reason. 

You had to admit, sitting there on top of him afforded you the best few. You’d never had anyone quite so godlike in your bed before, and you were prepared to savor every moment. 

In a flash, you were flipped onto your back, your head thrown into the pillows. His body weight pressed down on you but you welcomed it, snaking your legs around his waist and pulling him closer, grinding your core against him. 

He hummed his appreciation into your neck, scraping his teeth against your collarbone as he thrust savagely into you, his hips snapping against yours. It wasn’t long until you were both caught in the throes of passion, waves of pleasure washing over your both as you reached climax, first you and then him shortly after, his thrusts becoming shallower and more erratic. 

“Oh, fuck.” He exhaled, bending his head to rest on your chest. He placed a few soft kisses to your skin as he caught his breath. 

“Fuck.” You agreed, carding your fingers through his hair. “C’mere, I wanna cuddle.”

You rearranged your sweaty pile of limbs and bedsheets torn crooked from the frame into something comfortable. Peter lay on his back and you rested your head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. His hand found the small of your back, pressing into your skin like it was meant to be there. Your eyes fluttered closed of their own accord and you could’ve fallen asleep then and there. 

“What are you doing after this?” Peter broke the comfortable silence. You could feel his voice rumbling in his chest and you tilted your head. You searched his face, trying to puzzle together his meaning. Was that even a question? 

“I’m going to take a shower, probably?” 

“No, I mean after you finish your research project. After graduation.” 

You quirked an eyebrow. This was not the kind of pillow talk you were expecting. You lazily traced your fingers along the lines of his abs, enjoying the feel of his soft skin and smiling at how his muscles tensed when you brushed over a ticklish spot. 

“I was planning to take a few months to myself and then get a job, I guess. Gotta pay off my loans somehow...” Your smile slowly faded. Peter clasped your hand in his and brought your knuckles up to his lips. 

“I think I know someone who would like to have you on his payroll.” He murmured against your skin. 

“Is that so?” You opened your palm to cup his cheek in your hand, brushing your thumb over his lips. 

“Have you ever heard of Stark Industries?” 

“The name rings a bell.” You admitted, kissing him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright y’all A Thought. When I was in high school I competed on a quiz bowl team and made it to nationals a few times. Quiz bowl is pretty equivalent to academic decathlon featured in homecoming, at least in terms of abject nerdiness. Do I write about that next? There are college leagues that play and it’s pretty intense.
> 
> My only reservations are that I know I would get so very Technical and Academic with the quiz bowl that it might not be a very fun read if you aren’t über nerdy... then again I’m remembering the pop culture tournament we went to where you got to pick a code name to play under... I went as James Bond and my teammates were Q, Emperor Justinian, and Ayy Lmao
> 
> Yeah... I could have fun with that. Thoughts?


End file.
